Consign
by That's LEON
Summary: “You are bound to me, inextricably, henceforth and for evermore. Everything you are, you shall surrender to me.” Blackwood/Coward.


Coward dresses as the bathwater drains, pulling a plain black robe over his pale shoulders. He runs a hand through his hair for tidiness, and it remains partially slicked back with the moisture. He exits and makes his way quietly up to the attic, where Blackwood is waiting for him, clad in similar thin robes--simple, organic, unceremonious. There's something terribly intimate about the general lack of grandeur and the knowledge that the ritual in which he is about to participate in is genuine. It is a formality, certainly, and unnecessary, but this is not a show. There is no audience for this; this is between _them_.

The moon is full, and its light is a ghostly stripe down the center of the floor, cast through the single window at the head of the room. It runs directly through the heart of the room and through the circle, which is drawn onto the wood in white and surrounded by tall, translucent candles. The circle is plain, void of symbols. They will not be calling on anyone except each other tonight.

Blackwood stands in the circle like a pillar of marble draped in black, an unornamented chalice at his feet, his arms outstretched at his sides. "Come," he says. "Drink with me." His low, controlled voice fills the room as he issues his invitation--his command.

Coward steps into the circle, feeling the line beneath him as he crosses it. That simple curve on the ground erects a barrier between them and the world, completely containing them within its boundaries. Blackwood's presence is potent even when diluted by crowds and large open areas; being isolated with him, completely at his mercy in this small circle, is overwhelming. There is no space between them, despite the physical distance, and Coward is acutely aware of it. It is intoxicating. He is completely vulnerable here. There is nowhere to run and nothing to hide behind. Everything he is, Blackwood will see and know.

This is vivisection. This is him laid bare before his Lord for Blackwood to do with what he will. The intensity of the other's scrutiny is paralyzing, and for a moment, Coward falls still before him. Then, he kneels at Blackwood's feet to gather the goblet and rises, his attention fixed on the older man's lips as they curve around murmured Latin invocations. It is a simple prayer, but a solemn one. It is an asseveration that the pact they make here is irrefutable and sacred--that to defy it is a vile offense against the dark powers they swear it by.

Blackwood's hands fold over his own--firm, hot grasp on his chilled skin steering him toward oblivion--and Coward feels his eyes slide shut as the lip of the goblet is pressed to his mouth. He drinks deeply as it is tipped toward him, savoring the pleasant burn of alcohol down his throat. Opening his eyes only when the cup is righted, he watches, entranced, as Blackwood drinks, his own fingers still trapped comfortably beneath the other's. The grip over his own is released, and Coward sets the chalice back down beside them, just at the inside edge of the circle. Nothing can leave, anymore than anything can enter, until this is complete.

When they're standing face to face once again, Blackwood produces a knife from a hidden pocket in his robe and holds it out between them. They have shared wine. Now they will share blood. No pact of this gravity is complete without it; there is nothing dearer for men to swear on, and there is nothing more permanent to share.

"Lord Coward."

The sound of his name on Blackwood's lips, coupled with the merciless eyes burning into his own, makes Coward shiver. His gaze wavers and drops to the waiting blade, but snaps back up when Blackwood continues:

"The terms of the blood pact sworn under the watchful eyes of the omniscient Dark One are these." His even voice and near-monotone inflection bestows on his words an air of divine authority. "You are my servant, and I your master, and all that this entails in accordance with the laws of our faith. I am your highest authority among men, and your loyalty to me is absolute under pain of death and eternal damnation. There is but one will between us, and that is mine. I am your God among men."

"Yes, my Lord," Coward breathes. They don't need a pact to guarantee that.

"You are bound to me, inextricably, henceforth and for evermore. Everything you are, you shall surrender to me."

"Everything I am," Coward replies, "in mind, body, and spirit, is yours." The words are recited, but the sentiment behind them is genuine. Ever ambitious, never before has he been so eager to relinquish power--but then, never before has there been a man great enough to earn his devotion. People have always been beneath him, and he has _resented_ them for it. He, who has always risen above his peers, has found someone who is exhilaratingly and effortlessly _more_ than him. It is an honor to serve Lord Blackwood. And it is something far greater than that as well: it is his fate.

Few men have ever been great enough to be defined solely for who they are, but Lord Blackwood is one of them. And with each of them come those who are defined by their significance to those men. With each Achilles, a Patroclus, and with each Alexander, a Hephaistion.

Coward can only hope his Lord will hold him in such high esteem one day.

"And I am not without obligation to you," Blackwood continues. "Where you are bound to me as my servant, I am bound to you as your keeper. I am charged with enlightening you where you are ignorant and preserving you from harm where no harm should befall you. In as much as you belong entirely to me, your burdens, too, are mine to bear."

Good masters protect the interests of the loyal, Coward knows; it is a realization that has distanced him from the Church in recent years. He can no longer invest himself in a false God who offers him nothing in life and only forgiveness in death. He does not need forgiveness, and he refuses to live for it. Especially when there is a greater God, to whom solidarity is more admirable than repentance and power is the greatest good. It is the same God to whom Blackwood prays and whose example he follows, and Coward knows there is no place safer than beneath Blackwood's formidable wing. He is putting his well-being in the hands of the greatest man who draws breath.

"Then I shall strive to be worthy of your rule," he says quietly.

Blackwood grasps the younger man's wrist and holds the unmarred hand supine as he runs the blade delicately across the center of the palm, from one side to the other. Coward's breath hooks sharply in his throat at the heat of the fingers over his quickening pulse and the sting of cold steel. A gripping anxiety descends instantaneously upon him, an inevitable twisting in his gut as flesh snags imperceptibly against steel before it is delicately brutalized. He doesn't fight the rush of instinctive unease, and he is completely submerged in it for one incredibly brief moment. And then it subsides. There is an innocuous line across his palm, and his mind is quiet. Hot blood wells up over the thin red line and then leaks languorously over his ivory skin. His fingers twitch, but he holds his hand admirably still when Blackwood releases it.

With his untouched left hand, Coward accepts the knife, and draws it reverently across Blackwood's unflinching offered palm. Blood is running off the edge of his own hand in a steady drip now, wetting the floor between them, and he sets the knife next to the goblet.

"Do you swear to these terms, by the One who watches over us and on your own spilt blood?" Blackwood asks, his voice sharp in comparison to his murmurs. His words sound so immediate now, shockingly clear and unforgiving.

"I swear to them," Coward replies resolutely, because there is no room for doubt within this tiny circle, and he feels himself quiver with anticipation.

"And under the knowledge that pacts of blood cannot be broken, and that to violate them is a crime against the Dark One himself?" As he speaks those words, Blackwood raises his bloodied right hand between them, palm facing toward himself.

Coward grasps it with his own bleeding hand, pressing their palms together. "I do, my Lord." Their wrists curve around each other's like snakes. His blood is indistinguishable from Blackwood's as it drips from their hands, and there's something so remarkable about it that Coward can't tear his eyes from the escaping crimson beads until the other man speaks again.

"Your blood flows in my veins as my own."

"And yours in mine," Coward says dutifully, and he can't get over the momentous fact that it's _true._

"I am father and brother to you, as you are brother and son to me," Blackwood declares--his voice a silky-smooth murmur once again--because the ritual calls for it, but what binds them now is stronger than kinship. There are no words that can truly encapsulate it; the only satisfactory equivalent to a verbal description is this surreal sensation, of the edges of open wounds pressed together like lips in a sticky-sweet and searing kiss. His voice drops further to a low, dangerous whisper as he leans forward ever so slightly. "You _belong_ to me, Coward."

It is possession, completely and thoroughly.

A drop of blood dashes against hardwood. Blackwood's dark green eyes are impassive as he awaits the final words, and candle-light writhes against his strong features. Coward is crushed between the man's presence and the edges of the circle around them, but he is not afraid. He stares back, steadfast.

"Let it be so."

--

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**A/N:** Thanks to StellarEclipse for the beta. :3


End file.
